Introduction:
Enzymes serve a very important role in everyday life, reactions in a cell are normally much to slow to sustain life therefore enzymes are used in order to catalyze the reaction by lowering the activation energy needed for the reaction to occur (Biology Department, 2015). However only certain enzyme can catalyze certain reactions, the substrate of an enzyme is needed to fit into a specific shape in the enzyme, this shape is called the active site. When the substrate and enzyme bond products are produced in return (Reece et al., 2014, pp. 93-94). Enzyme have optimum conditions in which they can perform between, the temperatures of 35-40C, and 7 is the optimal pH for enzyme activity. During this experiment the enzyme alpha amylase will be examined, the product produced by this enzyme is maltose, when maltose comes in contact with dinitrosalicyclic acid a red colour is produced, this will allow us to view the effects of varying pH and temperatures (Biology Department, 2015). Absorbance value however is a much more accurate representation of enzyme activity because the absorbance measures the amount of product produce and therefore indicates enzyme activity. During this laboratory the effects of high and low temperature will be observed along with the effects of high and low pH on the alpha amylase enzyme.
Methods:
In order to complete experiment three, Enzymes Role in Biological Reactions, six test tubes were first labelled one to six. Placing the tape near the top ensured that the masking tape would not interfere with the results of the spectrophotometer. Fifteen drops of distilled water were then added to test tube one, ten drops to test tube two, ten drops to test tube three, and finally five were added to test tube four, test tubes five a six were not changed. Then the substrate was added, five drops were added to test tube two, five drops to test tube four, ten drops were added to test tube five, and finally five drops were added to test...